What I Wish People Knew About Emotional Regulation

About the Author

Brenda Dater, MSW, MPH, is the executive director at AANE and the author of “Parenting Without Panic.” Brenda is a mom of three, and her eldest is an Autistic transgender woman. Brenda has facilitated parent support groups for over 20 years and thoroughly enjoys creating an environment where parents can find the support, information, and the community they need.

Judging someone else’s outward behavior can happen in a split second. It’s easy to make assumptions about someone else when we witness something we think is wrong or confusing. When I hear remarks like, “how rude” or “they are so difficult,” I often wonder: what would it take for us to stop and pause and consider that our assumptions might be false? How do we learn that our own perspective might not explain or correctly identify what’s happening when we see someone struggling with strong emotions? 

Autistic individuals are so often misunderstood and blamed for their reactions. Certainly these responses can be strong and have a significant impact on others. But that doesn’t mean that what they are experiencing is invalid. When I was talking about this with my Autistic daughter, Rachel, she thought I should share some of the lessons we’ve both learned through the years about emotional regulation.

Emotional dysregulation is not manipulation. 

I’ve yet to meet an Autistic person who enjoys feeling out of control. It is painful to experience. Emotions often well up within one’s body and spill out in unpredictable ways. When my daughter was young and would feel overwhelmed by her emotions, I felt we were judged by others who seemed to suggest I was giving in to her demands and just reinforcing what they saw as “bad behavior.” But just as they were misinterpreting her actions as “willful” to get her own way, they misinterpreted my response. Sure, all children can be purposeful in their behavior at times, but having an Autistic person feeling overwhelmed and burnt out is not something they choose. During heightened stress, the part of the brain that controls rational thinking and emotional regulation is offline, and the person enters a state of flight, fight, freeze, or fawn. In those moments, she was simply unable to access rational thought.

When Rachel is feeling emotionally dysregulated, it is often because of any of the following difficult situations for her:

• sensory overload from noise, smells, lights or movement; 
• schedule changes that require her to act quickly; 
• people who forget to do things they promised (she has an amazing memory and forgets very little);
• feeling unsafe; 
• dealing with bureaucracies to resolve problems. 

And like many Autistic people I’ve known through the years, social injustice, concern about an uncertain future, and righting societal wrongs are core to Rachel’s being. She has described how her deeply held beliefs often contribute to intense feelings of anger and fear as she doesn’t see change happening quickly enough and she worries about her own and others’ safety as an Autistic transgender woman.

Compassionate curiosity helps the Autistic person feel understood instead of judged.

To me, being curious about why an Autistic person is feeling overwhelmed and offering compassion as they experience deeply unpleasant emotions is a foundational skill. 

When this happens to my daughter, I listen to her and let her know that I see she is in pain. I wait as all her deep upset pours out of her body. This can result in her saying things that are hurtful to me or other family members, even though we all know she doesn’t mean to hurt us. I try to do two things when this happens: 

1. I will quietly tell her that I know how hard it is for her and I’m sorry this is happening. I don’t try to convince her that she is wrong or that there are other points of view while she is in this heightened state. I try to see the situation from her perspective so she knows I understand why this is hard for her. 
2. I also let her know that she is saying very hurtful things to me and that I need to excuse myself and we can talk when she is more calm. I will remove myself and go do something else. This protects both of us: me from feeling the hurt of what she is saying and Rachel from feeling sad later from causing pain and saying things she didn’t mean. 

I also try to remember how hard it is to need so much consistency and routine in order to feel safe. Every day we are all faced with challenges and changes that mess with our schedules and priorities. Calls take longer than they should. Insurance companies send bills for appointments that should be covered. People we count on have a bad day and forget that they promised to do something for us. For Autistic individuals, these realities can cause intense stress. 

Learning coping strategies takes time and practice.

All of us have multiple opportunities each day to practice emotional regulation. We can recognize the things that bring on dysregulation and implement strategies to try to lessen their impact. We can also try to identify when our emotions are beginning to escalate to intervene with calming techniques or other approaches.

And we all have days where we fall short and emotions come out in ways that may hurt others’ feelings and damage relationships. When that happens, being aware of the impact of our behavior and working to repair any damage we may have caused is crucial if we want to maintain positive, healthy relationships. Even when I know that my daughter doesn’t mean to hurt my feelings or cause me pain when she is struggling with emotional regulation, I am still affected by what she says. Once she is feeling more calm and we can talk through what she was experiencing and the impact that had on me (or other family members), we all work together to repair the relationship by apologizing and then offering to do something together we enjoy. That allows us to move past the momentary conflict and have a more positive experience together.

My hope is that we all take a pause before attributing negative intent or assuming we know all there is to know about why someone is struggling with emotional regulation. I know Rachel has multiple stressors that impact her on a regular basis, and even though she counteracts them with walking or taking time with the dog, these stressors can sometimes add up. Although Rachel’s emotional overwhelms are fewer and shorter in duration, she still has them. Even though everyone in our family understands why they happen and how to support her, we can also be emotionally dysregulated. This doesn’t mean that we’ve failed. Understanding what led to an emotional overwhelm, repairing harm done to relationships, and seeking out ways to recover for all involved, allows us to move forward.